Category: Review

I think Amazon had a review that said if you’re a fan of Louis Sachar, you’ll love this book by Gordon Korman. I think that Korman has been writing great stuff for so long that it’s really more appropriate to say that if you love Gordon Korman, you’ll probably like a lot of Louis Sachar.

Like all Korman’s books, this one has a lot of heart. It wasn’t quite as laugh out loud funny as some of his other efforts, but it’s definitely got some great humor.

Typically I don’t like narratives that are told from multiple viewpoints, but Korman manages to pull it off incredibly well by starting each chapter with a title that uses an “Un-word” followed by the narrator and their IQ score. As a result we also get a much more nuanced picture of all of the characters which are incredibly well done.

As one of the “smart” kids growing up, I wish this book had been around to have read then, but it’s still great now and everyone is sure to appreciate it. While the protagonist is a boy, I really appreciated that there was lots of great female representation here.

Knowing that this was his first book and written when he was still a very young teenager, I didn’t expect a whole lot from Korman. Given that I’ve enjoyed so many of his other books, I should have held him to much higher standards as he always seems to be able to deliver!

The balloon arriving at the school was a bit deus-ex-machina, but it played out so well both plot-wise and even comedic-ly–even tying in the flag incident at the start of the story–that who could fault him?

Ugh… The clerk at the counter coughed directly into her hand immediately before taking out a bag and serving me a pastry (fortunately at least using tongs). I’m sure this was after helping the prior customer at the cash register, handling their payment, and not bothering to wash her hands at any point. What a public health nightmare! Some inexpensive disposable rubber gloves could be a welcome addition for people serving and running the register.

The final kicker was that the apples in the pastry were severely overcooked and had almonds hidden inside instead of obviously decorating the top.

Pastry at this level and price needs to pay way more attention to the details.

Not sure I can revisit again, which is sad because its an otherwise nice local pastry shop.

Sabine Hossenfelder’s new book Lost in Math should be starting to appear in bookstores around now. It’s very good and you should get a copy. I hope that the book will receive a lot of attention, but suspect that much of this will focus on an oversimplified version of the book’s argument, ignoring some of the more interesting material that she has put together.
Hossenfelder’s main concern is the difficult current state of theoretical fundamental physics, sometimes referred to as a “crisis” or “nightmare scenario”. She is writing at what is likely to be a decisive moment for the subject: the negative LHC results for popular speculative models are now in. What effect will these have on those who have devoted decades to studying such models?

Directed by James Ponsoldt. With Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Ellar Coltrane.A woman lands a dream job at a powerful tech company called the Circle, only to uncover an agenda that will affect the lives of all of humanity.

Even more interesting to watch this after the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal. It was sad to see the simplistic surface level only analysis of ideas in the film though.

Directed by Michael Dowse. With Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Megan Park, Adam Driver. Wallace, who is burned out from a string of failed relationships, forms an instant bond with Chantry, who lives with her longtime boyfriend. Together, they puzzle out what it means if your best friend is also the love of your life.

A cute enough movie. I might suggest that this is a slightly new flavor of romantic comedy flavored by a dash of the Millennial generation. It took a bit to get past the melange of accents of the characters to realize that the story was set in Toronto, but in general there were some reasonable performances by all involved. The plot was a bit too vanilla and no one really took any chances to up the ante of the concept which could have made this much more memorable. In general, it was entertaining enough to sit through once, but I wouldn’t give this a second screening.

The dreadful release date gives me more of a clue why I’d never heard of this. I suspect it’d have done better as a limited release in the Spring or late Fall instead. This wasn’t a great movie, but was better than it’s box office performance indicated. The studio left some money on the table with this one.

The weekly show, hosted by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic⁮’s editor in chief, features him doing a relatively in-depth interview of a single guest for about thirty minutes.

I almost look at this podcast as a far better version of some of the “Sunday shows” where the guest isn’t always so heavily guarded because it would be impolitic or that they’re lost in a sea of voices amongst a larger panel where they just can’t develop some longer coherent thoughts or theses.

To some extent, this podcast is starting to fill a hole in my daily schedule that was created by the disappearance of The Charlie Rose show late last year. The sad part is that, at only once a week, I’m going to wish I had a lot more when I’m done binge-listening to the short backlog I’ve got. On The Atlantic Interview I appreciate that the “thing guests may be selling” (book, article, show, film, etc.) takes a pointed back seat to the broader topic(s) at hand.

Much of the strength of what I’ve heard thus far stems from interviews with people that are slightly off the beaten path, but with serious messages and interesting viewpoints. They’ve all been journalisticly solid and almost always provide me with news, viewpoints, and subtle information that I didn’t have before. Another strength is that the show can give guests additional time and depth than they might receive on other traditional shows. The guests so far have been very smart, cogent, and interesting. Their selection has been well balanced for gender, topic, and general variety within the space the show occupies. The show has generally impeccable audio and production values.

While initial guests seem to have an air of familiarity with the host as the result of closer (disclosed) interpersonal connections, I suspect that even when the list of immediate friends in his Rolodex runs dry, the show will easily have enough value and gravitas to successfully run on long beyond this.

One of my favorite parts of these podcasts are the somewhat snarky bumpers that Goldberg puts onto the the end encouraging people to give reviews and subscribe. I kind of wish he’d let loose a bit more and inject some of this kind of snark into the interviews too. If nothing else, he’s at least having fun with a part of the show that would otherwise be typically painful to trudge through.

Suggestions

I’d love to hear more about education policy, health care, public heath, internet, and foreign policy. A few guest ideas I’d love to hear in this format: Tressie McMillan Cottom, Mike Morrell, Susan J. Fowler, César A. Hidalgo, Tantek Çelik, Ellen J. MacKenzie, and Ezekiel Emanuel. Continuing in the vein of interviewing the interviewers, which I find terrifically fascinating, I’d love to see Judy Woodruff, Fareed Zakaria, W. Kamau Bell, Trevor Noah, and John Dickerson in the future. These aside, I suspect that anyone that Mssr. Goldberg finds intriguing, I’m sure I will as well.

Additional Technical Commentary

I really wish their podcast had individual web pages for each episode so I could more easily email, share, or target individual episodes for people. It would also be nice if the main page actually had .mp3 versions of the audio embedded in them to make it easier to bookmark and share through services like Huffduffer.com. I really don’t know why podcasters insist on using third party podcasting services to hide their .mp3 files from the outside world–it’s literally their most important product! Stop it! I find the practice to be as irksome as newspapers that use Facebook as their primary means of distribution, and just like that case, they’ll regret it in the long run.

While Megaphone.fm is a nice hosting platform for the show, I’m not sure why a publication the size and scope of The Atlantic isn’t simply self-hosing their own content using their own URLs.

The content for the show is still a bit scatter-brained. The main page on The Atlantic has the best and most comprehensive meta-descriptions of episodes, while the Megaphone page has some nice individual episode artwork that The Atlantic doesn’t have or present. This is sure to cause uneven experiences for people depending on how they choose to subscribe.

I appreciate that some of the early episodes went to the trouble to have full transcripts and some additional snippet content and images. I miss these transcripts. I do know that doing this can be painful and expensive, though perhaps services like Gretta.com might have some technology to help. If they want to go crazy, it would be cool to see Audiogram functionality, which they could use instead of relying on Megaphone or some other platform.

A groundbreaking resource for those who need to deliver a memorable message introduces six key principles that help make messages stick--simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories--and explains how to incorporate each of these factors into the creative thought process. 100,000 first printing.

An awesome and quick read. I love that in some sense, they actually use their own advice when writing this to make some of their own ideas a bit more sticky. I thought this was a good little read and provides some interesting and very useful and actionable ideas. Definitely worth reviewing over some of the ideas in the near future for some writing I have in mind. I’d definitely recommend it to marketing people and communicators. I’d also love to delve further into some of their references.

Finally publishing this publicly with all the Highlights, Quotes, Marginalia, etc.

Reading Progress

12/28/17 marked as: want to read; “This seemed interesting in the library when I browsed by, so I picked it up. Seems a quick/easy read. Covers some interesting material related to ars memorativa which I may find interesting. They also make some references to schema within Hollywood, so that may be useful too.”

Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia

Or is it possible to make a true, worthwhile idea circulate as effectively as this false idea?

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 5

How many times have I thought of this very topic?Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

When we get advice on communicating, it often concerns our delivery: “Stand up straight, make eye contact, use appropriate hand gestures. Practice, practice, practice (but don’t sound canned).” Sometimes we get advice about structure “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em. Tell ’em, then tell ’em what you told ’em.” Or “Start by getting their attention–tell a joke or a story.”
Another genre concerns knowing your audience: “know what your listeners care about so you can tailor your communication to them.” And, finally, there’s the most common refrain in the realm of communication advice: Use repetition, repetition, repetition.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 9

The common refrains, many of which can be useless.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Which way will stick? And how do you know in advance?

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 10

This can be the holy grail of teaching…Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

What makes urban legends so compelling? […] Why does virtually every society circulate a set of proverbs? Why do some political ideas circulate widely while others fall short?

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 12

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This book is a complement to The Tipping Point [by Malcolm Gladwell] in the sense that it will identify the traits that make ideas sticky, a subject that was beyond the scope of Gladwell’s book.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 13

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Researchers discovered something shocking about the candy-tampering epidemic: It was a myth.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 14

I’ve always suspected that this was the case but never saw any evidence or reportage that back up this common Halloween myth. In fact, I recall taking candy to local hospitals for radio-graphic exams.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

In other words, the best social science evidence reveals that taking candy from strangers is perfectly okay. It’s your family you should worry about.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 14

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Introduction: Six Principles of Sticky Ideas

Both stories highlighted an unexpected danger in a common activity: eating Halloween candy and eating movie popcorn. Both stories called for simple action […] both made use of vivid, concrete images that cling easily to memory […] and both stories tapped into emotion: [fear… disgust…]

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 14-15

Many of these strike a cord from my memory training, which I suspect plays a tremendous part. Particularly the vividly clear and concrete details.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

There is no “formula” for a sticky idea–we don’t want to overstate the case. But sticky ideas do draw from a common set of traits, which make them more likely to succeed.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 15

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… we an genetically engineer our players. We can create ideas with an eye to maximizing their stickiness.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 16

This isn’t far from my idea of genetically engineering memes when I read Dawkins back in the day…Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Simplicity […] Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.

This seems to be the forthcoming core of the book.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

It’s not as though there’s a powerful constituency for overcomplicated, lifeless prose.

Highlight (blue) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 5

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Sadly, there is a villain in our story. The villain is a natural psychological tendency that consistently confounds our ability to create ideas using these principles. It’s called the Curse of Knowledge.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 19

The example they give of the [music] Tappers and Listeners is great to illustrate the Curse of Knowledge.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

You can’t unlearn what you already know. There are, in fact, only two ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge reliably. The first is not to learn anything. The second is to take your ideas and transform them.

Highlight (yellow) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 20

The JFK pitch to get a man on the moon was a great example here.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Introduction: Systematic Creativity

They found that 89 percent of the award-winning ads could be classified into six basic categories, or templates. […] (For the other templates,
see the endnotes.) […] Amazingly, when the researchers tried to classify these “less successful” ads, they could classify only 2 percent of them [using the previous 6 categories]. […] It appears that there are indeed systematic ways to produce creative ideas.

Highlight (green) – Introduction: What Sticks? > Page 22 & 24

This is some very interesting data. I should track this reference down. Particularly when they did the follow up of training groups in these methods (or not) and realizing that those with the templates did far better with minimal training.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Chapter 1: Simple

The [Army] plans often turn out to be useless.
“The trite expression we always use is No plan survives contact with the enemy,” says Colonel Tom Kolditz, the head of the behavioral sciences division at West Point.
“You may start off trying to fight your plan, but the enemy gets a vote. Unpredictable things happen–the weather changes, a key asset is destroyed, the enemy responds in a way you don’t expect.

Highlight (yellow) – Chapter 1: Simple > Page 25

aka Complexity…Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

So, in the 1980’s the Army adapted its planning process, inventing a concept called Commander’s Intent (CI).

Highlight (yellow) – Chapter 1: Simple > Page 26

The way to plan around complexity to some extent.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

It’s hard to make ideas stick in a noisy, unpredictable, chaotic environment. If we’re to succeed, the first step is this: Be simple. […]
What we mean by “simple” is finding the core of the idea. […] Finding the core is analogous to writing the Commander’s Intent.

Highlight (yellow) – Chapter 1: Simple > Page 27-28

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The French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupery once offered a definition of engineering elegance: “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Highlight (blue) – Chapter 1: Simple > Page 28

Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Highlight (yellow) – Chapter 1: Simple > Pages 28-46

Some interesting examples in the sections on “Finding the Core at Southwest Airlines”, “Burying the Lead”, “If you Say Three Things, You Don’t Say Anything.”, and “Decision Paralysis”Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

A great way to avoid useless accuracy, and to dodge the Curse of Knowledge, is to use analogies. Analogies derive their power from schemas:
A pomelo is like a grapefruit. A good news story is structured like a pyramid.

I’m not sure of the background of the actual pitch, but a little massaging really makes E.T. the tried and true story of a boy and his dog, but this time the dog is an alien! So again, it really is an analogy to another prior film, namely Lassie!Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Good metaphors are “generative.” The psychologist Donald Schon introduced this term to describe metaphors that generate “new perceptions,
explanations, and inventions.”

Evil twin indeed. There’s nothing artistic about their work at all.Added on Thursday, December 28, 2017 late morning

Chapter 2 Unexpected

And if a well-designed message can make people applaud for a safety announcement there’s hope for all of us.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 64

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Most of the time, though, we can’t demand attention; we must attract it.

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The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns. Consistent sensory timulation makes us tune out[…]

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Our brain is designed to be keenly aware of changes.

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This chapter focuses on two essential questions: How do I get people’s attention? And, just as crucially, How do I keep it?

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…we have to understand two essential emotions–surprise and interest–[…]

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And minivans deliver kids to soccer practice. No one dies, ever.

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Our schemas are like guessing machines. Schemas help us predict what will happen and, consequently , how we should make decisions.

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Emotions are elegantly tuned to help us deal with critical situations. They prepare us for different ways of acting and thinking.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 67

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For instance, a secondary effect of being angry … is that we become more certain of our judgements. When we’re angry, we know we’re right, as anyone who has been in a relationship can attest.

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When our guessing machines fail, surprise grabs our attention so that we can repair them for the future.

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In a book called Unmasking the Face, Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen coined the term, “the surprise brow,” …

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When our brows go up, it widens our eyes and gives us a broader field of vision–the surprise brow is our body’s way of forcing us to see more.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 68

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…when we’re angry our eyes narrow so we can focus on a known problem. In addition to making our eyebrows rise, surprise causes our jaws to drop and our mouths to gape. We’re struck momentarily speechless. Our bodies temporarily stop moving and our muscles go slack. It’s as though our bodies want to ensure that we’re not talking or moving when we ought to be taking in new information.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 68

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Researchers who study conspiracy theories, for instance, have noted that many of them arise when people are grappling with unexpected events, such as when the young and attractive die suddenly. […] There tends to be less conspiratorial interest in the sudden deaths of ninety-year olds.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 68-69

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What we see now is that surprise isn’t enough. We also need insight. But, to be satisfying, surprise must be “post-dictable.”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Hension and Phraug > page 70-71

Added on January 16, 2018

So, a good process for making your ideas stickier is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate–find the core; (2) Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message–i.e., What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isnt it already happening naturally? (3) Comjmunicate your message in a way that breaks your audience’s guessing machines along the critical counterintuitive dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines.

Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages. […] It’s your job, as a communicator, to expose the parts of your message that are uncommon sense.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Hension and Phraug > page 72

this could be done for the typical romantic ads about having a baby being a special time of life that’s cute and you don’t want to miss. really it’s traumatic and potentially life threatening and fragile. You HAVE to stop to re-adjust to your new life or you may end up losing your new precious someone (or worse, yourself.) Example is a California PSA ad that I heard on 3/13/18 on the radio.Added on January 16, 2018

To make a message stick, you’ve got to push it beyond common sense to uncommon sense.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Tire Chains at Nordstrom > page 74

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“The lead to the story is ‘There will be no school next Thursday.‘”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Journalism 101 > page 76

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“But,” says [social psychologist Robert] Cialdini, “I also found something I had not expected–the most successful of these pieces [scientists writing for an audience of non-scientists] all began with a mystery story.”

Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. […] Cialdini began to create mysteries in his own classroom, and the power of the approach quickly became clear. He would introduce the mystery at the start of class, return to it during the lecture, and reveal the answer at the end.

Sol Golomb used to do this with brain teasers at the start of class, presumably to catch the attention of bored students who could puzzle on it during class. I also suspected he used it to help identify creative thinkers and students smarter than their classwork might indicate.Added on January 16, 2018

Mystery is created not from an unexpected moment but from an unexpected journey. […] A schema violation is a onetime transaction. […] We would call it “first-level” unexpectedness. […]we’re asked to follow on a journey whose ending is unpredictable. That’s second-level unexpectedness. In this way, we jump from fleeting surprise to enduring interest.

[Robert] McKee says, “Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns. Story plays to this universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations.” […] In McKee’s view, a great script is designed so that every scene is a Turning Point. “Each Turning Point hooks curiosity. the audience wonders, What will happen next? and How will it turn out?

In 1994, George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University, provided the most comprehensive account of situational interest. It is surprisingly simple. Curiosity, he says, happens when we feel a gap in our knowledge.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The “Gap Theory” of Curiosity > page 84

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Pokemon cards cause kids to wonder, Which characters am I missing?

One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. The trick to convincing people that they need our message, according to Loewenstein, is to first highlight some specific knowledge that they’re missing. We can pose a question or puzzle that confronts people with a gap in their knowledge. We can point out that someone else knows something that they don’t. We can present them with situations that have unknown resolutions, such as elections, sports events, or mysteries. We can challenge them to predict an outcome (which creates two knowledge gaps–What will happen? and Was I right?.

As an example, most local news programs run teaser ads for upcoming broadcasts. […] These are sensationalist examples of the gap theory. They work because they tease you with something tat you don’t know–in fact, something that you didn’t care about at all, until you found out that you didn’t know it.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The “Gap Theory” of Curiosity > page 85

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The improvement here is driven by structure, not content. Let’s face it, this is not a particularly interesting mystery.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The “Gap Theory” of Curiosity > page 87

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Research has shown that we are typically overconfident about how much we know.

The average participant failed to identify more than 70 percent of the best solutions identified by an expert panel. This failure is understandable; we wouldn’t expect any one person to be able to generate a database worth of solutions. However, when the individuals were asked to assess their own performance, they predicted that they had identified 75 percent. They thought they got the majority, but in reality they’d missed them.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Battling Overconfidence > page 88

He’s set up his own mystery here… What are the others? (ways to reduce demand for parking example)Added on January 16, 2018

Eric Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard, came up with a pedagogical innovation known as “concept testing”. Every so often in his classes, Mazur will pose a conceptual question and then ask his students to vote publicly on the answer. The simple act of committing to an answer makes the students more engaged and more curious about the outcome.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Battling Overconfidence > page 89

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Overconfident people are more likely to recognize a knowledge gap when they realize that others disagree with the. Nancy Lowry and David Johnson [study] one grou, the discussion was led in a way that fostered a consensus. With the second group, the discussion was designed to produce disagreements about the right answer.

Students who achieved easy consensus were less interested in the topic, studied less, and were less likely to visit the library to get additional information.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Battling Overconfidence > page 89

think about this in terms of politics with the right versus the left and the effects on the public and news.Added on January 16, 2018

Curiosity comes from gaps in our knowledge.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Gaps Start with Knowledge > page 90

Example of ABC’s NCAA football games and Roone Arledge memo about setting the stage for gamesAdded on January 16, 2018

Questions about biology early on pushed me personally…Added on January 16, 2018

Chapter 3 Concrete

Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it. It also makes it harder to coordinate our activities with others, who may interpret the abstraction in different ways. Concreteness helps us to avoid these problems.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 100

Not good for mathematics then is it?Added on January 16, 2018

California is one of only five Mediterranean climate regions in the world. (The others are the fynbos of South Africa, the matorral of Chile, the kwongan of Australia, and, of course, the Mediterranean.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Nature Conservancy > page 100

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How could TNC make the new strategy more concrete

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Nature Conservancy > page 101

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Here’s what the TNC did: Instead of talking in terms of land area, it talked about a “landscape.” … Five landscapes per year sounds more realistic than 2 million acres per year, and it’s much more concrete.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Nature Conservancy > page 102

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Concreteness is an indespensable component of sticky ideas.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Nature Conservancy > page 104

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Concrete language helps people, especially novices, understand new concepts. Abstraction is the luxury of the expert.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Understanding Subtraction > page 104

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Teachers take an existing schema–the dynamics of a six person ball game–and overlay a new layer of abstraction. [Using stick figures to count up players.] The researchers called this style of questioning Computing in Context. It is pretty much the opposite of “rote recall.”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Understanding Subtraction > page 105

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What is it about concreteness that makes ideas stick? The answer lies with the nature of our memories.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Velcro Theory of Memory > page 109

this is exactly the underlying theory of the ars memorativaAdded on January 16, 2018

If the phrase, “Hey Jude” drew a blank, please exchange this book for a Beatles album. You’ll be happier.”

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Velcro Theory of Memory > page 110

HA! What a great little aside here.Added on January 16, 2018

Highlight (yellow) – Section Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes > page 111

great example here of a teacher who used blue/brown eyes to discriminate on students in a classroom and making them sit in the back of the room.Added on January 16, 2018

Instead, Elliott [the teacher] turned prejudice into an _experience_. Think of the “hooks” involved: The sight of a friend suddenly snearing at you. The feel of a collar around your neck.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes > page 113

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But if concreteness is so powerful, why do we slip so easily into abstraction?

The reason is simple: because the difference between an expert and a novice is the ability to think abstractly. […] And here is where our classic villain, the Curse of Knowledge, inserts itself.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Path to Abstraction: The Blueprint and the Machine > page 113-114

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…the moral of the story is to find a “universal language,” one that everyone speaks fluently. Inevitably, that universal language will be concrete.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Path to Abstraction: The Blueprint and the Machine > page 115

think about the problem of the engineers talking with the manufacturers on the floor speaking a common languageAdded on January 16, 2018

Imagine how much harder it would have been to build a 727 whose goal was to be “the best passenger plane in the world.” [compared to it must seat 131 passengers, fly nonstop from Miami to NYC and land on a short sub-1 mile runway.]

Highlight (yellow) – Section Concrete Allows Coordination > page 116

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“Almost everything we [Stone Yamashita Partners, a small consulting firm in San Francisco] do is visceral and visual,” Keith yamashita says. The “product” of most consulting firms is often a PowerPoint presentation. At Stone Yamashita, it’s much more likely to be a simulation, an event, or a creative installation.

The presence of the portfolio made it easier for the venture capitalist to brainstorm, in the same what that focusing on “white things in our refrigerator” [versus white things in general] made it easier for us to brainstorm.

…Studzinski learned that moms and their kids valued predictability. […] But Hamburger Helper had more than thirdy different flavors, and moms struggled to find their favorites among the massive grocery-store displays. […] “Moms saw new flavors as risky,” she says.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Making Ideas Concrete > page 127

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By making Saddleback Sam and Samantha a living, breathing, concrete presence in the minds of the members of the Saddleback Church, the church has managed to reach 50,000 real Sams and Samanthas.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Making Ideas Concrete > page 129

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Of the six traits of stickiness that we review in this book, concreteness is perhaps the easiest to embrace. It may also be the most effective of th traits.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Making Ideas Concrete > page 129

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Chapter 4 Credible

Ulcers are caused by bacteria. The researchers, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, identified a tiny spiral-shaped type of bacteria [Helicobacter pylori] as the culprit.

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The medical community expects important discoveries to come from Ph.D.s at research universities or professors at large, world-class medical centers. Internists do not cure diseases that affect 10 percent of the world’s population.

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Let’s pose the question in the broadest possible terms: What makes people believe ideas?

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When we think of authorities who can add credibility, we tend to think of two kinds of people. The first kind is the expert–the kind of person whose wall is covered with framed credentials. […] Celebrities and other aspirations figures make up the second class of “authorities.” […] Why do we care that Michael Jordan likes… ..We care because we want to be like Mike,… We trust the recommendations of people whom we want to be like.

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This is why even horrible celebrity endorsements work for advertising.Added on January 16, 2018

Can we find external sources of credibility taht don’t involve celebrities or experts? [Yes.] We can tape the credibility of anti-authorities.

Highlight (yellow) – > page 134

example of Pam Laffin, the anti-smoking icon who had emphysema by 24 and used her personal story to show the vagaries of smoking.Added on January 16, 2018

[Greg] Connolly [director of tobacco control for the Massachussetts Department of Public Health] said, “What we’ve learned from previous campaigns is that telling stories using real people is the most compelling way.”

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The takeaway is that it can be the _honesty and trustworthiness_ of our sources, not their _status_, that allows them to act as authorities. Sometimes antiauthorities are even better than authorities.

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Take the teens of the Parkland Shootings in March 2018 as examples for moving the needle on the gun control debate.Added on January 16, 2018

An expert on folk legends, Jan Brunvand, says that legends “acquire a good deal of their credibility and effect from their localized details.” A person’s knowledge of details is often a good proxy for her expertise. […] But concrete details don’t just lend credibility to the _authorities_ who provid them; they lend credibility to the idea itself. The Civil War anecdote, with lots of interesting details, is credible in _anyone’s_ telling. By making a claim tangible and concrete, details make it seem more real, more believable.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Power of Details > page 138

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In 1986, Jonathan Shedler and Melvin Manis […] created an experiment to simulat a trial. […] The jurors were asked to assess the fitness of a mother, Mrs. Johnson, and to decicd whether her seven-year-old son should remain in her care. […] So why did the details make a difference? They boosted the credibility of the argument. If I can mentally see the Darth Vader toothbrush, it’s easier for me to picture the boy diligently brushing his teeth in the bathroom, which in turn reinforces the notion that Mrs. Johnson is a good mother.

The use of vivid details is one way to create internal credibility–to weave sources of credibility into the ide aitself. Another way is to use statistics.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Beyond War > page 141

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“This approach is an ingenious way to convey a statistic.”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Beyond War > page 142

Talking about BB example: One BB: This is Hiroshima. Lot’s of BBs, this is the world’s stockpile (paraphrase)Added on January 16, 2018

The point was to hit people in the gut with the realization that this was a problem that was out of control. […] Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship. It’s more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Beyond War > page 143

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The soccer [team] analogy generates a human context for the statistics. it creates a sense of drama and a sense of movement. We can’t help but imagine the actions of the two players trying to score a goal, being opposed at every stage by the rest of their team. […] It relies on our schema of soccer teams and the fact that this schema is somehow cleaner, more well-defined, than our schema of organizations.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Human-Scale Principle > page 145

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Statistics aren’t inherently helpful; it’s the scale and context that make them so. […] The right scale changes everything.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Human-Scale Principle > page 146

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“A bag of popcorn has as much Vitamin J as 71 pounds of broccoli!” (We made this up.)

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Human-Scale Principle > page 147

I like that they made it J to make it feel false if retold.Added on January 16, 2018

When it comes to statistics, our best advice is to use them as input, not output. Use them to make up your mind on an issue.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Human-Scale Principle > page 147

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It’s the Sinatra Test: If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. [example of Safexpress delivering the Harry Potter books in India]

For an example that unites all three of the “internal credibility” sources–details, statistics, and the Sinatra test–we can turn to Bill McDonough, an environmentalist know for helping companies improve both the environment and the bottom line.

Instead, the commercials developed a brand-new source of credibility: the audience. Wendy’s outsourced its credibility to customers. […] To use scientific language, Wendy’s made a falsifiable claim.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Where’s the Beef? > page 157

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[on examples: Snapple slave ship and circle K (Kosher) as a Klan ownership symbol] This is how testable credentials can backfire–the “see for yourself” step can be valid, while the resulting conclusion can be entirely invalid.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Testable Credentials > page 158

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It’s much more powerful to experience the effect for yourself.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Testable Credentials > page 161

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NBA aids example

Highlight (yellow) – Section Rookie Orientation > page 162

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Chapter 5 Emotional

Mother Teresa once said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

Highlight (yellow) – > page 165

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When people think analytically, they’re less like to think emotionally. […] The mere act of calculation reduced people’s charity. Once we put on our analytical hat, we react to emotional appeals differently. We hinder our ability to feel.

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For people to take action, they have to care. […] Charities have long since figured out the Mother Teresa effect–they know that donors respond better to individuals than to abstract causes.

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The good news is that to make people care about our ideas we don’t have to produce emotion from an absence of emotion. In fact, many ideas use a sort of piggybacking strategy, associating themselves with emotions that already exist.

Research conducted at Stanford and Yale shows that this process–exploiting terms and concepts for their emotional associations–is a common characteristic of communication. People tend to overuse any idea or concept that delivers an emotional kick. The research labeled this overuse “semantic stretch”.

The lesson for the rest of us is that if we want to make people care, we’ve got to tap into the things they care about. When everybody taps into the same thing, an arms race emerges. To avoid it, we’ve either got to shift onto new turf, as Thompson did, or find associations that are distinctive for our ideas.

In 1925, John Caples was assigned to write a headline for an advertisement promoting the correspondence music course offered by the U.S. School of Music. Caples had no advertising experience, but he was a natural. He sat at his typeswriter and pecked out the most famous headline in print-advertising history: “They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano…But When I Started to Play!”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Appealing to Self-interest > page 177

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Caples says companies often emphasize features when they should be emphasizing benefits. […] The old advertising maxim says you’ve got to spell out the benefit of the benefit. In other words, people don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits. They buy quarte-inch holes so they can hang their children’s pictures.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Appealing to Self-interest > page 179

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We get uncomfortable looking at Caples’s handiwork: Many of his ads are shady. Deceptive. The Magnetic Personality Kit may enjoy a conscience-free existence, but most of us aspire to a working relationship with the truth.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Appealing to Self-interest > page 179

Magnetic Personality Kit people are reminiscent of Donald J. Trump and his administrationAdded on January 28, 2018

The first lesson is not to overlook self-interest. Jerry Weissman, a former TV producer and screenwriter who coaches CEOs in how to deliver speeches, says that you shouldn’t dance around the appeal to self-interest. He says that the WIIFY–“what’s in it for you,” pronounced wiffy-y–should be a central aspect of every speech.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Appealing to Self-interest > page 179

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Teachers are all too familiar with the student refrain “How are we ever going to use this?” In other words, what’s in it for me?

synopsis: 1982 psychologists persuasion study of homeowners. Being told about the benefits of cable vs. imagining how cable will improve your live.Added on January 28, 2018

Go back and count up the number of times the word “you” appears in each appeal.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Cable TV in Tempe > page 180

more in the second of imagining yourself….Added on January 28, 2018

The Arizona study, though, took it a step further. It asked people to visualize the feeling of security they would get by using [the product].

Highlight (yellow) – Section Cable TV in Tempe > page 180

This is just how the mnemotechniques workAdded on January 28, 2018

The research paper, when it was published, was subtitled “Does Imagining Make it So?” The answer was yes.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Cable TV in Tempe > page 180

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Compared with a typical mail-order ad, the “imagine cable television” appeal is a much more subtle appeal to self-interest. […] This finding suggest that it may be the tangibility, rather than the magnitude, of the benefits that makes people care. You don’t have to promise riches and sex appeal and magnetic personalities. It may be enough to promise reasonable benefits that people can easily imagine themselves enjoying.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Cable TV in Tempe > page 182

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Maslow’s Pyramid, or Maslow’s Heirarch of Needs.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Maslow > page 183

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Subsequent research suggests that the hierarchical aspect of Maslow’s theory is bogus–people persue all of these needs pretty much simultaneously.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Maslow > page 183

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He’s clear about his leadership mission: “As I see it, I am not just in charge of food service; I am in charge of Morale.”

Think about that: I am in charge of morale. In terms of Maslow’s hierarch, [Floyd] Lee is going for Transcendence.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Dining in Iraq > page 186

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It’s the attitude that makes the difference. […] Lee realizes that serving food is a job, but improving morale is a mission. Improving morale involves a creativity and experimentation and mastery. Serving food involves a ladle.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Dining in Iraq > page 187

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So, sometimes self-interest helps people care, and sometimes it backfires. What are we to make of this?

This has the example of firefighters needing a payout of a popcorn popper to watch fire prevention videoAdded on January 28, 2018

And perhaps the most important part of the story is this: “Group interest” is often a better predictor of political opinions than self-interest. Kinder says that in forming opinions people seem to ask not “What’s in it for me?” but rather, “What’s in it for my group?” Our group affiliation may be used based on race, class, religion, gender, region, political party, industry, or countless of other dimensions of difference.

and here’s where politics changed drastically in America after 1998Added on January 28, 2018

A related idea comes from James March, a professor at Stanford University, who proposes that we use two basic models to make decisions. The first model involves calculating consequences. We weigh our alternatives, assessing the value of each one, and we choose the alternative that yields us the most value. This model is the standard view of decision-making in economics classes: People are self-interested and rational. [..] The second model is quite different. It assumes that people make decisions based on identity. They ask themselves three questions: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? And what do people like me do in this kind of situation?

Instead, [Floyd Lee] helped create a kind of Pegasus identity: A Pegasus chef is in charge of morale, not food. You can imagine hundreds of decisions being made by staffers in the tent who think to themselves, What should a Pegasus person do in this situation?

And for those that don’t, they are mathematicians.Added on January 28, 2018

🔖 example about litter in Texas: “Don’t Mess with Texas”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Don’t Mess with Texas > page 195

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So far we’ve looked at three strategies for making people care: using associations (or avoiding associations, as the case may be), appealing to self-interest, and appealing to identity. …but we’ve got to watch out for our old nemesis, the Curse of Knowledge, which can interfere with our ability to implement them.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 199

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One of the exercises was intended to help the leaders articulate and refine the core mission of their organization. The questions put to the attendees were difficult ones: Why does your organization exist? Can other organizations do what you do–and if so, what is it you do that is unique?

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 199

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The mission to “preserve duo piano music” was effective and meaningful inside Murray Dranoff, but outside the organization it was opaque.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 201

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It’s easy to forget taht you’re the tapper and the world is the listener.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 201

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By asking “Why?” three times, the duo piano group moved from talking about what they were doing to why they were doing it.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 201

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This tactic of the “Three Whys” can be useful in bypassing the Curse of Knowledge. (Toyota actually has a “Five Whys” process for getting to the bottom of problems on its production line. […] Asking “Why?” helps to remind us of the core values, the core principles, that underly our ideas.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 201

Put into wiki in IWC. Why webmention? Fundamental to the interconnection of the web and how it works. LINKS! {example of IDEO creating simulations that make people realize problems exist}Added on January 28, 2018

simulations that drive employees to empathize with their customers.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 202

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This realization–that empathy emerges from the particular rather than the pattern–bings us back full circle to the Mother Teresa quote… […] How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical Hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities–not only to be the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Music of Duo Piano > page 203

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Chapter 6 Stories

Later, the group realized why the heart monitor misled them. It is designed to measure electrical activity, not actual heartbeats.

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The story about the baby appears in a chapter called “The Power of Stories,” in [Gary] Klein’s book Sources of Power. Klein says that, in the environments he studies, stories are told and retold because they contain wisdom. Stories are effective teaching tools. The show how context can mislead people to make the wrong decisions.

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The story’s power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). […] An emotional idea makes people care. And in this chapter we’ll see that the right stories make people act.

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🔖 Shop Talk in the Xerox Lunchroom

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🔖 The Un-passive Audience

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Maybe financial gurus should be telling us to imagine that we’re filthy rich; instead, they should be telling us to replay the steps that led to our being poor.

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what about Napoleon Hill’s popularityAdded on January 28, 2018

Why does mental simulation work? It works because we can’t imagine events or sequences without evoking the same modules of the brain that are evoked in real physical activity.

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Mental simulations help us manage emotions.

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Perhaps most surprisingly, mental simulation can also build skills. A review of thirty-five studies featuring 3,214 participants showed that mental practice alone–sitting quietly, without moving, and picturing yourself performing a task successfully from start to finish–improves performance significantly. […] Not surprisingly, mental practice is more effective when a task involves more mental activity (e.g., trombone playing) as opposed to physical actiivty (e.g., balancing), but the magnitude of gains from mental practice alone produced about two-thirds of the benefits of actual physical practice.

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Stories are like flight simulators for the brain.

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The more that training simulates the actions we must take in the world, the more effective it will be.

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What about math problems?Added on January 28, 2018

We must fight the temptation to skip directly to the “tips” and leave out the story.

Jared reminds us that we don’t always have to create sticky ideas. Spotting them is often easier and more useful. What if history teachers were diligent about sharing teaching methods that worked brilliantly in teaching students?

Just as there are ad templates that have been proven effective, so, too, there are story templates that have been proven effective. Learning the templates gives our spotting ability a huge boost.

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Aristotle believed there were four primary dramatic plots: Simple Tragic, Simple Fortunate, Complex Tragic, and Complex Fortunate. Robert McKee, the screenwriting guru, lists twenty-five types of stories in his book: the modern epic, the disillusionment plot, and so on. When we finished sorting through a big pile of inspirational stories–a much narrower domain–we came to the conclusion that there are three basic plots: the Challenge plot, the Connection plot, and the Creativity plot.

These three basic plots can be used to classify more than 80 percent of the stories that appear in the original Chicken Soup collection. Perhaps more suprisingly, they can also be used to classify more than 60 percent of the stories published by People magazine about people who aren’t celebrities.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Art of Spotting > page 225

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The story of David and Goliath is the classic Challenge plot.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Challenge Plot > page 226

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There are variations of the Challenge plot that we all recognize: the underdog story, the rags-to-riches story, the triumph of sheer willpower over adversity.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Challenge Plot > page 226

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That [the story of the Good Samaritan] is what a Connection plot is all about. It’s a story about people who develop a relationship that bridges a gap–racial, class, ethnic, religious, demographic, or otherwise.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Connection Plot > page 228

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Where Challenge plots involve overcoming challenges, Connection plots are about our relationships with other people.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Connection Plot > page 228

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The Creativity plot involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle, or attacking a proble in an innovative way. It’s the MacGyver plot.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Creativity Plot > page 229

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In the history of the [Ingersoll Rand] Grinder Team, this story has become known as the Drag Test. The Drag Test is a Creativity plot that reinforced the team’s new culture. The Drag Test [dragging material behind their cars instead of traditional lab tests] implied, “We still need to get the right data to make decisions. We just need to do it a lot quicker.”

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Creativity Plot > page 230

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“How wonderful! They’ve stolen my idea. It’s become their idea!”

Highlight (yellow) – Section Stories at the World Bank > page 233

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In 2001, he [Stephen Denning] wrote a very insightful book called The Springboard. Denning defines a springboard story as a story that lets people see how an existing problem might change. Springboard stories tell people about possibilities.

One major advantage of springboard stories is that they combat skepticism and create buy-in.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Stories at the World Bank > page 233

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The problem is that when you hit listeners between the eyes they respond by fighting back. The way you deliver a message to them is a cue to how they should react. If you make an argument, you’r implicitly asking them to evaluate your argument–judge it, debate it, criticize it–and then argue back, at least in their minds. But with a story, Denning argues, you engage the audience–you are involving people with the idea, asking them to participate with you.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Stories at the World Bank > page 234

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A springboard story helps us problem-solve for ourselves. A springboard story is an exercise in mass customization–each audience member uses the story as a springboard to slightly different destinations.

Highlight (yellow) – Section Stories at the World Bank > page 234

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🔖 example: Gary Klein taking stories out of a conference as an overview of what happened instead of pithy one-liners.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Conference Storybook > page 237

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Stories can almost single-handedly defeat the Curse of Knowledge. In fact, they naturally embody most of the SUCCESs framework. Stories are almost always Concrete. Most of them have Emotional and Unexpected elements. The hardest part of using stories effectively is makig sure that they’re Simple–that they reflect your core message. […] Stories hav ethe amazing dual power to simulate and inspire. And most of the time we don’t even have to use much crativity to harness these powers–we just need to be ready to spot the good ones that life generates every day.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Conference Storybook > page 237

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Epilogue: What Sticks

[In 1946, Leo] Durocher [coach of the Dodgers] pointed at the Giant’s dugout and said, “Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than [Giant’s manager] Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why, they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are thy? In seventh place!” As recounted by Ralph Keyes in his book on misquotations, Nice Guys Finish Seventh… [this quote] emerged as a cynical comment on life: “Nice guys finish last.”

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[Sherlock] Holmes never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Highlight (yellow) – > page 239

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…in making ideas stick, the audience gets a vote. The audience may change the meaning of your idea, as happened with Durocher. The audience may actually improve your idea, as was the case with Sherlock Holmes. O the audience may retain some of your ideas and jettison others, as with [James] Carville [,who used had three phrases: “It’s the economy, stupid”, “Change vs. more of the same” and “Don’t forget health care”, only one of which stuck.]

The barrier to idea-spotting is that we tend to process anecdotes differently than abstractions.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Power of Spotting > page 241

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…we can also put on Core Idea Glasses, allowing us to filter incoming ideas from that perspective.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Power of Spotting > page 241

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If you’re a great spotter, you’ll always trump a great creator. Why? Because the world will always produce more great ideas than any single individual, even the most creative one.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Power of Spotting > page 242

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[Talking about Chip’s student exercise in class:] In the average one-minute speech, the typical student uses 2.5 statistics. Only one studen in ten tells a story. Those are the spaking statistics. The “remembering” statistics, on the other hand, are almost mirror image: When students are asked to recall the speeches, 63 percent remember the stories. Only 5 percent remember any individual statistic.

Furthermore, almost no correlation emerges between “speaking talent” and the ability to make ideas stick.

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Speakers and the Stickers > page 243

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The stars of stickiness are the students who made their case by telling stories or by tapping into emotion…

Highlight (yellow) – Section The Speakers and the Stickers > page 243

double entendre for this book as they’ve previously mentioned “tapping” out music….Added on January 28, 2018

The first is decision paralysis–the anxiety and irrationality that can emerge from excessive choice or ambiguous situations. […] To beat decision paralysis, communicators have to do the hard work of finding the core.

Highlight (yellow) – Section More Villains > page 244

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Getting a message across has two stages: The Answer stage and the Telling Others stage. In the Answers stage, you use your expertise to arrive at the idea that you want to share. Doctors study for a decade to be capable of giving the Answer. Business managers may deliberate for months to arrive at the Answer.

Here’s the rub: The same factors that worked to your advantage in the Answer stage will backfire on you during the Telling Others stage. To
get the Answer, you need expertise, but you can’t dissociate expertise from the Curse of Knowledge. You know things that others down’t know, and you can’t remember what it was like not to know those things. So when you get around to sharing the Answer, you’ll need to communicate as if your audience were you.

Highlight (yellow) – Section More Villains > page 245

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There is a curious disconnect between the amount of time we invest in training people how to arrive at the Answer and the amout of time we invest in training them how to Tell Others. It’s easy to graduate from medical school or an MBA program without ever taking a class in communication. College professors take dozens of courses in their areas of expertise but none on how to teach. A lot of engineers would scoff at a training program about Telling Others.

Highlight (yellow) – Section More Villains > page 245

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For an idea to stick, for it to be useful and lasting, it’s got to make the audience:
1. Pay attention UNEXPECTED
2. Understand and remember it CONCRETE
3. Agree/Believe CREDIBLE
4. Care EMOTIONAL
5. Be able to act on it STORY

Guide to highlight colors

Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category belowOrange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare wordGreen–Reference to readBlue–Interesting QuoteGray–Typography ProblemRed–Example to work through

This morning, at the Friday morning coffee meetup of Innovate Pasadena held at Cross Campus, I saw one of the singularly best and most valuable talks I’ve heard in a long time. Many of these types of speakers, while engaging or even entertaining, are telling the same tired stories and at best you learn one sentence’s worth of value. Definitively not the case this morning!!!

How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”) by Valerie Alexander

Entitled How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”) writer and speaker Valerie Alexander presented a brief discussion of human evolutionary history (a topic I’ve studied closely for several decades) that featured the difference in development of male and female human brains. Based on this and with a clearer picture of what broadly differentiates the sexes, Valerie then gave a multitude of highly relate-able examples from her professional life highlighting how women can simply take back control in the workplace to not only better succeed for themselves, but to also help their companies see their true value and succeed simultaneously.

Further, she also included some simple and very actionable advice (for men and women) to be able to make a better space within corporations so that they’re able to extract more of the value women bring to the workplace. Hint: Women bring a HUGE amount of value, and a majority of companies are not only undervaluing it, but they are literally throwing it away.

Not only were the messages tremendously valuable and imminently actionable by both women AND men, but she delivered it with fantastic confidence, grace, wit, charm, and warmth. In fact, I’d say it was not only strikingly informative, but it was also very entertaining. If you’re in the corporate space and looking to turn around your antediluvian or even pre-historic work culture (I’m looking ominously at you Uber and similar Silicon Valley brogrammer cultures), then jump in line as quickly as you can to book up what I can only expect is the diminishing time in her speaking and travel schedule.

Innovate Pasadena recorded the talk and I’ll try to post it here as soon as it’s available. Until then I will highly recommend purchasing her book How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”), which I’m sure has not only the content of her lecture, but assuredly includes a whole lot more detail and additional examples than one could fit into such a short time frame. I also suspect it’s the type of book one would want to refer back to frequently as well. I’ve already got a half a dozen copies of it on their way to me to share with friends and family. I’m willing to make a substantial bet that for uncovering inherent value, this book and her overall message will eventually stand in the pantheon of texts and work of those like those of Frederick Winslow Taylor, Lillian Gilbreth, Frank Gilbreth, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, J.M. Juran, and W. Edwards Deming.

Psst… If the good folks at TED need some fantastic content, I saw a shortened 25 minute version of her hour-long talk. It could be tightened a hair for content and length, but it’s got exactly the tone, tempo and has the high level of presentation skills for which you’re known. Most importantly, it’s definitively an “Idea worth spreading.”

Innovate Pasadena has finally uploaded a copy of the video of Valerie Alexander’s talk:

A seemingly calm and friendly seaside town becomes a town wrapped in secrets when the death of an eleven year old boy sparks an unwanted media frenzy. As the town's locals start to open up about what they do and don't know, it falls upon the police to catch the supposed killer.
Creator: Chris Chibnall
Starring: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Andrew Buchan

I’m not sure exactly how I came across this, but I’ve just binged watched the first season (2013) of this great series. The second season from 2015 is also on Netflix already, and I’m thrilled to see that there’s already a season three from 2017 which hopefully will be available soon too.

In the same vein as the series Shetland, which I loved, this is a brooding small town, sea-side police drama. I suspect that many who appreciated Shetland as much as I did will love this. Those who haven’t seen either are recommended to do so if they’re drama/crime/mystery fans.

While generally good, the cinematography here wasn’t as solid as it was in Shetland, but it certainly goes a long way toward creating the real character of the series. This particular season was much more like the last season of Shetland in that it’s an extended episode focusing on one case while many of the early episodes of Shetland were one or two-parters rather than an eight episode arc. The other big differentiator was that Shetland has a stronger focus on character amidst the case while this one is a tad weaker.

The casting was very solid and varied. Fans of the Harry Potter films will recognize several members of the cast passing through including lead David Tennant, who is probably best known by sci-fi fans from his decade long turn in Dr. Who. The acting was generally good, though there were a few missteps that could have been better. One small flaw revealed the ending to me in one of the middle episodes. It seemed a bit off to me that Tennant’s hair was an affected brassy color rather than a more darker natural color–it was definitely a choice.

The plot was pretty solid overall despite one or two pieces which were a bit too convenient (and far too coincidental), particularly in retrospective. The Jack Marshall story line outcome was painfully under-motivated and didn’t play as realistic to me, but the rest was well done including the gut punch ending in the final episode of season one. Given the complexity and nuance of as many characters interacting in such a small town, the overall arc is incredibly well done.

I can’t wait to power through the next season, and hope the third is available soon. Knowing the casting stays much the same, I’m really curious how the next two seasons are plotted.

I watched this on the 40″ Samsung in high def with Netflix routed through my Google Chromecast.

I originally picked this up on April 18th when my brother Steve had asked me if I could track down a copy for him. Last week another friend mentioned it at brunch with her recommendation, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Kondo does an excellent job of highlighting the most important parts of the book as she goes along, so it’s rather easy to skim back through the book for important parts.

The basic gist is to get rid of everything in one’s home that doesn’t “spark joy” when physically holding it. It’s not too dissimilar to the philosophy set forward by designer/artist William Morris who once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Most of the book is devoted to some of the basic philosophy as well as recommendations about how to go about paring things down and storing them. In particular I found some of her ideas about folding things interesting and I was a bit surprised at how one can differently fold things to not only save space in drawers, but to also make them easier to see and choose.

I went so far as to watch some videos about how she folds:

This series of short videos and a few longer talks do a relatively good job of encapsulating the contents of the book.

An interesting thing I find in what I’m supposing is a translation from Japanese is that though the translation is strong, the flavor of the writer’s Japanese culture still burns through the philosophy and story of the work. To me these were some of the most interesting parts of her story.

The urge to point out someone else’s failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space.

Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 620

Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017

In fact, that particular article of clothing has already completed its role in your life, and you are free to say, “Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you,” or “Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me,” and let it go.

Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 698

\Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

Highlight (yellow) – Finish discarding first > Location 706

Added on Saturday, May 6, 2017

Tidying by category works like magic

You may have wanted to read it when you bought it, but if you haven’t read it by now, the book’s purpose was to teach you that you didn’t need it.

When you treat your belongings well, they will always respond in kind. For this reason, I take time to ask myself occasionally whether the storage space I’ve set aside for them will make them happy. Storage, after all, is the sacred act of choosing a home for my belongings.

Guide to highlight colors

Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category belowOrange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare wordGreen–Reference to readBlue–Interesting QuoteGray–Typography ProblemRed–Example to work through

I expected far better than this from Frankenheimer and Caine. I didn’t realize until after watching it that it was made in the mid 1980’s. It plays far more like a 70’s plot including the music and the cinematography. I’ve not read the Robert Ludlum novel, though I suspect as is the case for others in his canon that the book was far better than the film version, particularly for late 70’s/early 80’s material.

I watched this as a poorly cropped and overly letterboxed version on Amazon Prime, so the quality was certainly lacking from that perspective.

While there was a reasonable amount of suspense throughout, it’s not the directing that creates the ride, but really the liberally applied music which, while not great, was probably the best part of the experience. Those interested in what sound can do for a plot should study this piece.

In all, the plot was a muddy and convoluted and didn’t play itself out well at all. Tom Cruise’s first Mission Impossible was clearer. Frankenheimer had a few nice films, but it’s middling fare like this that squarely peg him as passable journeyman for most of his career.

Caine had one or two nice quips in the picture and was serviceable, but didn’t have quite the personality that shines through in many other pictures. The overall cast was great, they just weren’t given much in terms of plot or dialogue.

Some of the highlight quotes for me:

[Spotting a car tailing them]
Noel Holcroft: Probably just another Sunday driver. But on the other hand, as it is Tuesday, why don’t you put your foot on the gas and see what happens.

Noel Holcroft: May I suggest, that it is extremely difficult for a man, in a gray flannel suit, to behave naturally, while riding on a horse in the middle of the night, waiting for someone to shoot at you!

Directed by Will Gluck. With Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne. A foster kid, who lives with her mean foster mom, sees her life change when business tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in.

Finishing out the Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje 2014 mini-movie retrospective after watching Pompeii yesterday. What polar opposite characters in many senses. He didn’t seem as big or imposing here while he was positively brutal in the other.

The opening with the alternate red headed Annie would have played better if it was a tad more respectful to its own source material.

This incarnation of Annie was alright, but not as solid as the 1982 version. The update to a modern setting was relatively good, but New York didn’t feel much like New York. A part of the magic was missing and I’d suggest that it was the music that killed it for me. None of the singing felt live and all of it was auto-tuned even for actors for whom it probably wasn’t necessary. On top of this none of the classic songs from the book were understandable from a lyrics point of view, and this is sad since that’s where half of the story is hiding.

The other piece that was missing was the general chemistry between Annie and her benefactor. The ebullient joy of the 1982 Annie with the curmudgeon played by Albert Finney just overwhelmed the poorly developed relationship in this version.

This might have been better timed from a zeitgeist perspective if it had been released in Fall 2016 with more veiled references to Trump, though no one would have bought the rich-guy-with-a-heart ending.

Directed by Gareth Edwards. With Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen.
The Rebel Alliance makes a risky move to steal the plans for the Death Star, setting up the epic saga to follow.

Some good entertainment all around, but not as gripping as past installments. Definitely worth the trip to see it on the big screen though.

The Tarkin CGId character was a bit distracting, but not so terrible because of the dim lighting in most of his scenes. His eyes never seemed to connect with his interlocutors which was annoying. He wasn’t as horrible as the Leia CGI character which went deep down into the uncanny valley in large part because of both the close up as well as the bright lighting.

The casting for the older characters from Chapter IV was reasonably good otherwise. The comedic conceit for the robot stole the entire show. I also wish there’d been more of Mads Mikkelsen who is just awesome in almost everything he does.

After a bunch of skin-of-the-teeth escapes throughout the movie, I am left wondering why the lead characters are left to fate at the end. Was it just to completely leave no thought of additional sequels for them?

Plot

It was a dark and stormy night…

In eleven novels in the series, one of them was bound to start off like this, in a sense. Like most in the Fletch series, the story is off like a shot from the beginning, but then just a tad into the first act there’s another huge plot point (suggested by the title of the book) or known by the close reader who remembers Crystal Faoni who was a major (large?) character from Fletch’s Fortune.

I don’t know that I believed the convicts just taking Fletch’s word for where to hide out at the time, in part because the character development to make it plausible didn’t come until later. There was also a plot point involving the sheriff that I saw coming from a mile away that could/should have been much more subtle for a bigger surprise when it was revealed.

My biggest problem was that after some great build up I was expecting something really big or interesting from either Fletch or his son to close out the whole story. Sadly the end of the plot devolved in too quick and short a manner for a really satisfying pay off.

Of all of the Fletch books, so far this one seems to be the biggest influencer for the creation of portions of the movie Fletch Lives, which was otherwise made out of whole cloth based on the character. In some sense Cleavon Little’s character “Calculus Entropy” replaced Fletch’s son and big parts of the plot were heavily rewritten purely for entertainment’s sake.

Of all of the books which mention the seemingly ever-present Edward Arthur Tharp, Jr., this one seems to have more detail about it, particularly as in this story the book has finally been finished and it becomes a method by which Fletch and his son seem to probe each other about it. Oddly there was no mention or parallel between Fletch’s own mother as a writer and his having become a writer.

Character

Fletch’s girlfriend in this piece serves as pure plot and didn’t feel as multi-dimensional as she should have been given her role in the piece. She does serve well as the “better angel” as well as the gut reaction most readers will also be feeling through the story. But as always, one must just “trust” Fletch and his plan of where he’s going, even if he’s not sure himself.

Fletch himself seems to be much the same as we remember him, though I really wonder how and why he seems to have settled down into small town Tennessee life. Descriptions in the book make it sound like he’s still a man of the world, but somehow interesting people come to him instead of him going to see them. None of this really fits into the bigger character to me, but the story continues as if it doesn’t matter anyway.

Fletch’s son plays things very close to the vest, so his motivations and character aren’t really developed until much later in the piece, but in some sense he’s at least differentiated well enough from Fletch to be his “own man” here.

I liked that even the racists here were given some well done characterization so that despite their beliefs that one could actually feel bad for them in some sense. I will say it was relatively interesting to read in the timeperiod of the 2016 presidential election.

Summary

Overall this was a middle-of-the-road Fletch installment. (But still ranks relatively high on the mystery/suspense/detective genres). I suspect that it would have been more interesting to Fletch fans who hadn’t had an installment in a few years based on the time it was released. For a potential reboot of the series, or for kicking off a new series, it wasn’t a bad effort.

Reading Progress

08/7/16 marked as: want to read; “The Rio Olympics reminded me that I’d gotten Carioca Fletch to read back in the 80’s and never got around to it, so I thought I’d come back and revisit the series.”

11/26/16 13.0% done; “Fletch has a son. He’s a convict and he’s on the run after a prison break. Will Fletch help him out?”

11/28/16 25.0% done; “We’re off like a shot. Somehow it doesn’t seem terrifically believable that the escape convicts so easily take Fletch’s advice on where to hide, but he does a fantastic job of coralling them in the opeining.
Some of the overt “Southernness” feels overdone to me, but perhaps it was the effect of Mcdonald’s many years living in Tennessee which had a tarnishing effect.”

11/29/16 57.0% done; “We’re starting to go somewhere, but I can sadly already almost predict the ending. In particular, there was a ham-handed mention of a car that gave the whole thing away for me.
Of all of the Fletch books, so far this one seems to be the biggest influencer for the creation of portions of the movie Fletch Lives, which was otherwise made out of whole cloth based on the character.”

12/1/16 64.0% done; “This is where things begin to go sideways! Here comes the third act… Much of what I anticipated was going to happen has; the question now is how will he manage to extract himself (and his friends/family)?”

12/03/16 Finished book

Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia

“Some villains decided to take themselves a little vacation from the federal penitentiary up in Kentucky, Carrie.”
“Can’t blame ‘em,” Fletch said. “We’ve been advertising Tennessee as a vacation spot. Take yourselves off to Tennessee. Isn’t that the slogan?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 44-46

Added on Saturday, November 26, 2016 10:47:45 PM

“Mister Fletcher. Miss Carrie.”
“Howdy, Sheriff,” Carrie said.
“Don’t Francie let you take a shower-bath at home anymore?”
“Says I keep leavin’ wet towels on the bathroom floor. So she sends me out every time there’s a hard rain.

Highlight (yellow) Location 56-59

Added on Saturday, November 26, 2016 10:47:59 PM

A few months before, two of the county’s cars had smashed into each other, in a parking lot.

Highlight (yellow) Location 112-112

Poor storytelling form here.

Added on Saturday, November 26, 2016 10:51:46 PM

“I don’t have a gun,” Carrie said. “What do I do if the wolf comes by?”
“What you charmin’ Tennesseans always do.”
“What’s that?”
“Say, ‘Hydy, Mister Wolf. How’s your pa?’”
“Which paw will I be askin’ about in this case? Right, left, front, back?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 124-129

Added on Saturday, November 26, 2016 10:53:09 PM

At first Fletch saw only the back of a soaking wet, lean male in his early twenties. The back of his denim shirt had stitched on it FEDERAL PENITENTIARY/TOMASTON. Fletch tisked. “You kids. You can’t wear anything without some sort of an advertisement or a slogan on it. Wouldn’t the usual beer logo or ‘YALE’ do just as well?”

Kriegel took a few steps toward Carrie and Fletch. It seemed his intent to take them by the hands. Fletch stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1008-1010

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 7:51:05 PM

“Shit,” she said. “He’s your son, all right. Clear as a church bell on a crisp night. He’s got your body.” “Oh, don’t say that,” Fletch said. “Last time someone said that about me and someone else, one of us got shot through a window.”

Highlight (yellow) Location 1024-1027

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 7:52:34 PM

“You going to get married?” “These days you marry a woman and two lawyers. Beds just aren’t that big.”

“Ah, Fletch. Don’t think of yourself as a Yankee anymore. You’re about gettin’ over it.”

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Like it was a disease

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 8:32:04 PM

Jack had been amazed to see Fletch come out of the henhouse carrying eleven eggs. “Wow!” he said. “You make your own eggs!” Then he said, “They’re dirty!” Fletch said, “You think they were hatched already scrambled with milk and butter?” Jack grinned. “I was hatched sunnyside up, I was.” “I see,” Fletch said. “So you scrambled yourself.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 8:33:12 PM

“For a guitar picker, you sure know some different scales.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 8:55:04 PM

Having been a print journalist, and someone who had written a book, Fletch persisted in believing there was not much future in electronics, generally.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1260-1261

But what about his technology platform in the prior book (Fletch and the Man Who)?

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:00:35 PM

We’re as slick as a boxer after the tenth round.”

Highlight (yellow) Location 1339-1339

should have been noting these. this is the 20th of these goofy similies…

One way and another, Fletch had learned the importance of creating a diversion.

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:14:59 PM

Arms akimbo, Carrie said, “What are you? Only God and you know that, and I suspect you’re confused.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:17:38 PM

“Besides,” Carrie answered in a milder tone, “generally, Fletch doesn’t hold much stock in simple questions. He says, when you ask a question all you get is an answer to the question, not the truth. He says, to get the truth it’s best to wait and watch and listen.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:19:58 PM

“Oh, yes,” Carrie said. “Fletch calls you the tactile generation. For short, he calls you the scabpickers. What you know, what you do isn’t important, only what you feel.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1450-1452

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:21:24 PM

By golly, Ms.

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Consistency of chapter opens?

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:26:55 PM

“All three hundred and fifty pounds of white and naked flab you all call Leary is dead to the world out on the back lawn,” Fletch said. “I swear, if we drag him down to the roadside, the slaughter truck will pick him up for the glue factory without even stopping to ask which nature of beast he is.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:28:48 PM

apolitical

Highlight (gray) Location 1518-1519

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:31:49 PM

“Come, come,” Fletch said. “Jack and I will be with you. What have you to fear? You know Jack is a karate expert. And I? Don’t even ask. Never have I met man or beast to make me tremble in nose or lip.”

Highlight (yellow) Location 1544-1546

I love the stilted language here to poke fun of the racist

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:35:15 PM

Pity if you escaped prison just for a zoological experience in a ditch.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:36:00 PM

If biff came to bang, Fletch would be interested to see what John Fletcher Faoni would do.

Fletch shouted at Leary, “Now, hold on to that little cow!” Standing, with his feet spread, Leary grabbed the bull calf’s tail. As Carrie started the truck down the driveway, Leary’s boots slipped in wet manure already on the floor of the pickup truck’s bed. He landed on his ass. On the manure. Both his hands still held on to the bull calf’s tail. “Hold on to it!” Fletch ordered. “It’s shittin’ on me!” Leary yelled halfway down the driveway. It certainly was.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1614-1620

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:41:31 PM

Then Fletch watched Jack choking with laughter. “Oh, hello.” Fletch slapped Jack on the back. “How are you feeling?”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:43:13 PM

Jack smiled. “Shall I sing a few bars of ‘Let the Punishment Fit the Crime’?”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:44:52 PM

Jack said, “I’m amazed at the way you have kept us all weak, incapacitated.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:45:37 PM

In the backseat, blinking slowly, Kriegel was waking up. The guitar was propped up on the seat beside him. Their shapes were similar. The guitar had the more attractive neck.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1669-1670

awesome description

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:47:33 PM

Kriegel asked, “Who is this Professor Josiah Black?” Neither Fletch nor Jack answered. Kriegel insisted. “What did you mean by ‘Josiah Black’?” Fletch did not answer. “It comes from an old American song, sir,” Jack answered. “What’s the name of the song?” Jack said, “‘Ol’ Black Joe.”’ “‘Ol’ Black Joe’?” Kriegel spluttered. “You called me an old, black Joe? Is that supposed to be funny?” “I had to tell him something, didn’t I?” Fletch asked. “Couldn’t say you are Santa Claus now, could I?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 1685-1693

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:52:48 PM

“I mean, don’t you realize you are the most despised person on earth?” “Who, me?” “You are the intelligent, educated to some degree, I gather, well-off, middle-aged, heterosexual white male. On this earth, you are distinctly the minority. Yet you and your kind have made the world, as we know it, what it is. For centuries, you have created the religious and political institutions, the businesses, the wars, laws that protect and suit you to the exclusion of others, while exploiting all people of color, Indians, Negroids, Orientals, even those less fortunate than yourself of the same tribe, the laborers, as well as all women and children.” “Wow.” Fletch well knew these sentiments. He had been confronted with such often enough. “And all this time I thought I was just gettin’ along best I could.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:53:56 PM

“What, your being thirsty? Chew buttons.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 9:55:17 PM

There is no place from the Balkans to the city of Los Angeles where tribal wars are not raging. Am I right? Humans basically are tribal, Mister Fletcher, something your government does not understand. There is the individual. There is the family. There is the tribe.

Highlight (yellow) Location 1736-1738

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 10:01:05 PM

“That tribalism is being used, around the world, by a lot of would-be tinpot demagogues and dictators, warlords, simply to grab power and all the good things for themselves. That that is what really goes on in the world, among whites, blacks, Orientals, women, children, always has and always will: power-mongering based on individual greed.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 10:02:48 PM

“Ummm.” Fletch smiled at Jack. “Not the first time I’ve noticed that those who lecture, frequently don’t listen.”

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 10:04:30 PM

Racism has taken off its coat,” Fletch said.

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Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 10:08:04 PM

“Best-laid plans,” Carrie said, “often get screwed up.”

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Reference To a Mouse by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”

The governor of California has issued a statement reminding people that most of California is not affected by earthquakes at all. I suspect that bit was written for him by the Chamber of Commerce goaded by amusement park operators.”

Highlight (yellow) Location 2003-2005

Added on Monday, November 28, 2016 10:25:31 PM

Always he had noticed builders in this area of the South never left trees, or any source of shade, in their parking lots. Trees are pretty, give shade, lessen the need for air-conditioning, but golly gee, take up as much as a square foot of ground space.

She tasted her chili. “Yee! It tastes like chopped horned toads and ketchup! These foreigners don’t even know how to make respectable chili!”

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Added on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 1:38:15 AM

shifts

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Added on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 1:39:41 AM

“Fletch, the license plate is from our county.”

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Major tell that Sheriff didn’t pick up escapees

Added on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 1:42:35 AM

She’s out of pocket.

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I’m curious about where/when this phrase originated with the meaning of being “not available”? Perhaps with the invention of the cell phone that could fit into a pocket? Or earlier with a pool reference?

Added on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 1:45:17 AM

“This kid could be as crazy as a groundhog on ice.”

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Added on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 1:46:16 AM

“I suspect it’s not every man’s dream to discover his son is a cop-killing, escaped convict, racist, hate-group organizer.”

“Ah, Fletch! You’re not going to give me that one-world crap, are you?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 2326-2326

Added on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 1:45:35 AM

Softly, Fletch said, “Since the beginning of time, a few have taken the fact of economic competition, no matter how great the resources, and used it to create hatred and violence to satisfy their own greed.”

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Added on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 1:45:56 AM

“How can I object?” Jack said. “I am a result of selective breeding. Aren’t I?”

“My, my,” Fletch said to Carrie. “This is being taped.” “‘Vanity, vanity,’” Carrie said. “‘All is vanity.’” “More than that,” Fletch said. “Like their predecessors, they are carefully documenting their own history.” “So later they can deny it, right?”

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very remniscent of Trump

Added on Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:08:59 AM

Ethnic cleansing. Separatism.”

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Added on Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:11:21 AM

In the wasteland of Karoo, South Africa, Orania is the name of the headquarters of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

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Added on Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:15:46 AM

There, standing, staring at them, openmouthed was their friend, the sheriff, Joe Rogers.

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Added on Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:18:53 AM

I’ll believe that when catfish meow and climb trees.”

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Added on Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:19:44 AM

If it were not the nature of these people to blame others for their ills, Fletch reasoned, they would not be here.

“Animals? These aren’t the chosen people?” “No. You are the chosen people, Mister Fletcher. All this I do for you.”

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Sounds like something Jesus would say

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:16:10 PM

“Never judge a leader by his followers.”

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:16:18 PM

“We are just using these fools, these psychotics, toward an end.” “‘Using’ them,” Fletch repeated. “Of course. Using them. I wish I didn’t have to. There are many reasons you should be grateful, supportive toward my efforts.” “Sorry, I never carry my checkbook.” “Where would these psychotic fools be tonight, what would they be doing if they were not here bashing each other’s brains out?” “Home baking cookies?” “They have to belong to something, something bigger than they are, something secret, of which they can be secretly proud. By their natures, these fools are gang members. They are incapable, you see, of standing on their own, as individuals. We’re just taking advantage of their natures. We direct their energies. We organize them. They need the discipline we give them.”

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:17:11 PM

Jack said to Fletch: “What do you know? I’ve killed a cop.”

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:26:54 PM

Sabotage Corps is

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typo extra line return

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:44:09 PM

And you know the one thing people never can remain silent about is silence.” Andy remained silent.

Jack had awoken in time to set up the sound system for The Reverend Kriegel’s religious service, prayer meeting, sermon, harangue, newly scheduled for eleven o’clock.

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:08:54 PM

The Reverend Kriegel then had said a few words over the grave. To the men’s amusement, he commented on the appropriateness of “burying the cook cheek to jowl with roasted beef.”

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:09:39 PM

we will take just the men you have here—having chosen a small, fairly isolated city, in the Southwest, South, Midwest, West, it doesn’t matter—gather intelligence on it, turn off its power and water, attack it in force, and liberate from that town’s banks and other businesses what I think you Americans call ‘cash money.’

Highlight (yellow) Location 3465-3468

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:28:45 PM

Fletch realized he had the advantage. She was backlit by the fading light in the window behind her. The attendant had closed the door behind Fletch. He could see her amazing outline. She couldn’t see him at all.

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Interesting use of “amazing”

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:36:02 PM

“If you had raised a son, he would have rebelled against you, dissented, probably become the opposite of everything you are and everything you stand for. Sons do that.” “Some sons, I guess.” “Your son would have. I’m certain your son would have. Not knowing you, Jack adores you.”

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Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:39:43 PM

“His name is John Fletcher Faoni?” “Yes.” “Who’s John?” “You wanted more of Irwin Maurice maybe?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 3625-3627

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:40:56 PM

Strooth

Highlight (orange) Location 3690-3690

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:45:38 PM

“I’m not clucking.” It was getting dark outside and Fletch’s mind was settling on pizza. “I’m expostulating.”

Highlight (yellow) Location 3695-3696

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:46:12 PM

For a moment, Fletch was unsure whether it was Wolfe’s idea to shoot at Jack and Fletch, or to shoot himself.

Highlight (yellow) Location 3882-3883

What a dull ending if this is it.

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 4:07:43 PM

“I’ve heard that about you. You once reported a murder to your editor and asked him to tell the photographers to give the widow time to get home to report the murder.” “Did I?”

Highlight (yellow) Location 3899-3900

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 4:08:48 PM

Fletch said to Jack, “A woman named Slavenka Drakulic, a victim of the most recent Balkan ethnic-cleansing wars, wrote in The New York Times Sunday Magazine: ‘We are the war. I am afraid there is no one else to blame. We all make it possible. We allow it to happen. There is no them and us. There are no numbers, masses, categories. There is only one of us and, yes, we are responsible for each other.’”

Highlight (yellow) Location 3977-3980

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 4:13:28 PM

While Jack studied his ticket, Fletch said to Jack, “A woman named Slavenka Drakulic, a victim of the most recent Balkan ethnic-cleansing wars, wrote in The New York Times Sunday Magazine: ‘We are the war. I am afraid there is no one else to blame. We all make it possible. We allow it to happen. There is no them and us. There are no numbers, masses, categories. There is only one of us and, yes, we are responsible for each other.’” “Got a pen and piece of paper?” Jack asked. “In the glove compartment. Just thought that quote might add something to your story, if it fits in anywhere.” “How do you spell her name?” “By golly. The kid can even work pen and paper!”

After a half dozen mentions of the stupid firecracker cake, this is almost funny now.

Added on Saturday, December 3, 2016 4:16:37 PM

Guide to highlight colors

Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category belowOrange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare wordGreen–Reference to readBlue–Interesting QuoteGray–Typography ProblemRed–Example to work through